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1 - Introduction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 March 2018

Joana Garmendia
Affiliation:
University of the Basque Country, Bilbao
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Summary

The notion of irony is difficult to pinpoint precisely, as we use it to characterize very diverse elements. In this first introductory chapter I introduce several real instances which can easily be laveled ironic. Focusing on their similarities and differences, we can start understanding how the different types of irony relate to each other. Sometimes it is an event or a happening that we call ironic --this sort of case is normally non-intentional and it is called situational irony. In many stories or literary works the narrator plays by hiding some information from the characters, while the readers are aware of their ignorance --this is what we call dramatic irony. When someone has the intention to communicate something ironically, usually using language to do so, then that is an instance of verbal irony. From a pragmatic standpoint, we are interested on analyzing the latter, as a form of human communication.
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Irony , pp. 1 - 16
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2018

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References

Booth, W. 1974. A Rhetoric of Irony. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Muecke, D. 1969. The Compass of Irony. London: Methuen.Google Scholar
Gibbs, R. W. & Colston, H. L. (eds.). 2007. Irony in Language and Thought: A Cognitive Science Reader. New York: Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Gibbs, R. W. & O’Brien, J.. 1991. Psychological aspects of irony understanding. Journal of Pragmatics 16: 523–30.Google Scholar
Lucariello, J. 1994. Situational irony: a concept of events gone awry. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 123(2): 129–45.Google Scholar
Horn, L. R. & Ward, G. (eds.). 2004. The Handbook of Pragmatics. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Korta, K. & Perry, J.. 2006. Pragmatics. In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Zalta, E. N. (Winter 2006 edn). Available at http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2007/entries/pragmatics/.Google Scholar
Levinson, S. 1983. Pragmatics. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar

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  • Introduction
  • Joana Garmendia, University of the Basque Country, Bilbao
  • Book: Irony
  • Online publication: 06 March 2018
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316136218.001
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  • Introduction
  • Joana Garmendia, University of the Basque Country, Bilbao
  • Book: Irony
  • Online publication: 06 March 2018
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316136218.001
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Introduction
  • Joana Garmendia, University of the Basque Country, Bilbao
  • Book: Irony
  • Online publication: 06 March 2018
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316136218.001
Available formats
×